


There You Feel Free

by inthemarketplace



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Lost in the Woods, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Rey (Star Wars), Post TLJ, a little light force healing, nihilistic outlooks on death, stolen heavily from T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland, violence but it isn't super graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 09:46:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13567992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthemarketplace/pseuds/inthemarketplace
Summary: Random, very brief one shot—Rey recalls a time (post TLJ) where she encountered Kylo in the wilderness of a frozen wasteland of a planet.





	There You Feel Free

**Author's Note:**

> “…he took me out on a sled,  
> And I was frightened. He said, Marie,  
> Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.  
> In the mountains, there you feel free.”  
> (lines 14-17, stanza one, Burial of the Dead, The Wasteland, T. S. Eliot)

I still think about it, sometimes, that night in the mountains.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. If it weren’t for the scars, I’d wonder if it really did.

I think about his face, and this is what I see: it’s snowing and snowing hard when I land a little too roughly on the moon. I tumble out of the ship and down into the bank of a frozen world and he’s there, streaked with angry scarlet and face ribboned white and black… But that’s not quite right, is it? I landed much too roughly and it wasn’t even snowing yet. And he didn’t show up until later. 

It was a simple forgettable mission—a greyish brown reason that has long since faded away. Also faded from my mind: where it was I lost that first blood. 

* * *

The second cut was worse; not just a brush against brambles—a deeper insult. But still I kept walking. The third was carved in stone, and by the time the beast cornered me in the snowy forest, it had gotten harder to want to fight although I did fight, I couldn’t give up so easily; to yield here, in this wasteland would be unthinkable. The living seemed so far away and I wondered if it always felt like this, if you feel yourself slipping into the next world when it’s time to go.

I ignited my blade in its skull even as it sunk its teeth into me.

I was fading, red rivers running into the ground. But the frost has a way of preserving—I think if I had faded there completely I still wouldn’t have been gone, as long as the cold had covered me. I saw a flash of scarlet above me and I thought: _there is my blood, dancing above me! How beautiful!_ Then I went to sleep.

* * *

I came to in cavernous darkness offset by a far-off crimson glow. The first thing I felt was the friction of funereal black cloths wrapped like ribbons around my arms and legs, holding in all the red. The second thing I felt was the agony of no longer being in the safe blanket of the cold. The pain of thawing was worse than any cut could be.

I saw his face floating above me and I didn’t scream, simply waited patiently for him to strike me down. I think I was ready, in the fire-lit cave, to go for good.

He took my hand, and then I was frightened. _Don’t be afraid_ , his eyes whispered and, _hold on tight_. And suddenly my pain increased, but it only did so because it was going down. Soon I couldn’t feel the screaming daggers of the teeth that had been in my leg and that made me remember the rocks that had dug into my arm. And when those were forgotten in a fine swirl I remembered the rough branches that had whipped at my face. But far too soon I couldn’t feel the memories of any of it, it was all wiped snow-clean, changed into a dull warm ache. It must have taken so much power to take away so much hurt, but all I could think was _without my pain, who do I become_? and _can I still survive if I’m not fighting_? and _why is he still holding my hand_? And I closed my eyes but still I held on tight. I lay like that for a very long moment before I sat up, the newness of my flesh still smarting, and took his face in my hand. He trembled but he nodded; I brought his lips to mine and down we went.

It was a carnival—an adventure safely cased in an expiration date. There—in the mountains—I felt free.

I don’t remember words though we must have spoken them, mustn’t we? But when I think back I remember a silent world, snow outside muffling heartbeats. I remember a violet hour when he touched me and time split into a thousand pieces and I could see them all and taste them too. Red-hot skin, lust-black eyes, loneliness. So much loneliness I thought it would crush me into the ground. His loneliness and mine together feeding on each other like two bloody energies and I—clambering in a language I didn’t speak—begged for more.

It concluded quite suddenly and I thought, “well now that’s done, and I’m glad it’s over.” Funny, the little lies we tell ourselves to get along. When I lay drowsy by the fire and he put his arm around me I didn’t skirt away. I let him hold me into a dreamless sleep, but even then I knew it couldn’t last. We would have to fight, and worse, one of us would have to win. So I wasn’t hurt when I was woken not by a lover’s touch, but by a nipping frost, saying _hurry up, please, it’s time to go_.

 

Leaving was hard, but landing again was the worst part. I touched down onto a spring-bloom world and the safely-frozen things inside me melted; I was too many things at once and all of them hurt. 

I don’t remember hearing their cries when they saw me, black bandages wrapped around small arms, clambering down from the craft—I remember their eyes though. They each had their own flavor of worry, but they needn’t have done so. I never wanted that night in the mountains to go on forever. My nerves were bad that night. My memories too quiet. _What are you thinking of? Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Too quiet._ I can’t tease out a single sound from his gone lips, that part has faded entirely. He was a king with a death-wish, eating my pain. Together we were unreal and you can’t build a city on that, it would vanish into smoke.

I still think about it, sometimes, that night in the mountains. And I wonder if he thinks of me.

**Author's Note:**

> Eliot would totally hate this, but I don't care. He was pretentious.


End file.
